CPO diaries

[Roy Bland]

Let's petition for Kauffman's second album

[Roy Bland]

Let's petition for Kauffman's second album

made
https://chng.it/cgsLFZhZrd

[Brian]

Three piano tries, each about a half-hour, plus another half-hour suite of works for cello and piano. Sinding is well-ish-known for his violin concerto and symphonies, as a Nordic composer who was more in touch with continental romanticism than counterparts like Grieg, and therefore somewhat less distinctive. These piano trios continue that pattern. They're unfailingly genial, well-written, melodious, and fit into a Brahmsian model. Pleasant listening. Not memorable, but pleasant. The cello suite is similar, though much less Brahmsy in sound.

I say this about a lot of CPO releases, but I have a fantasy of some day having a beautiful home library room with dark wood built-in shelves, one of those ladders on a track, and a table with a bottle of whiskey available at all times. And if that day ever came, I could imagine putting this on in the background while reading or reorganizing.



Oscar Straus made his name in 1905 with an operetta parody of Wagner (!) called the Merry Nibelungs (!). He had always wanted to write light music and traveled to Paris as a youngster to study with Delibes. Unfortunately he arrived just days after Delibes had died, so he instead became a student of...Max Bruch...who passionately opposed light music and threatened to denounce Straus if he ever wrote an operetta. Things didn't go well. 

But this concerto appears to date from the Bruch years, and therefore is more serious. The main theme, in B minor with a single obsessively repeated note in funeral-march-like rhythm, announces the work as Serious Stuff. But it proves frothier, in part because the piano jumps in right away, without an orchestral tutti. The second movement is a short intermezzo with light operatic charm, and the finale comes around to the major key, with a few passages that remind me of the Saint-Saens concertos. The ending, with a grand theme stated by the horns over piano accompaniment, is very grandiose indeed. Although it is not an especially memorable work - Straus had yet to develop the melodic ear required for light opera - the shape is right and the music entertains.

The Serenade for string orchestra also started as an attempt to please Bruch (with a requiem!) before turning into a light 20-minute diversion complete with a delicious half-pizzicato waltz and a march finale. I guess the somewhat robust first movement in G minor must be the last lingering remnant of possible requiem material? The rest of the serenade is not quite as light as Robert Fuchs (let alone someone like Dag Wiren), but certainly nowhere near as "deep" as Tchaikovsky or Elgar. Parts of it are a little stiff and gray.

The Reigen waltz from 1950 starts off (its first six notes) like Berlioz' "ballet des sylphes," but goes in a more Viennese direction. A harmless cream puff which, in true Viennese tradition, includes some violin solos. The "Princess of Tragant" waltz sequence is much better, a glittering full-on Straussian (with the extra S) extravaganza and the best piece on the CD.



The booklet says Gustav Jenner was the only young composer who was invited by Brahms to travel to Vienna and study with him, contrasting with the several other young composers who traveled to Vienna in order to ingratiate themselves with Brahms and ask for lessons.

The first track does not bode well, starting with a rather trite, simplistic theme. Although the subsequent works are less objectionably cheesy, none of them is memorable, except maybe Stimmung No. 3, a 60-second imitation of a music box playing a melody. Overall, I struggled to finish the CD.



Hans Eklund was a student of Lars-Erik Larsson in the 1950s, about the same time as Bo Linde, and although he claimed to be more traditionalist than some of the other young Swedish composers of the era, he also wrote a piece for the Darmstadt festival. These three symphonies are technically "tonal," for whatever that word means, but they are often gnarly, violent, dark, and unpredictable. They almost never match their subtitles.

No. 3, "Sinfonia rustica," was written in a holiday cabin on the island of Gotland, but it takes a violent view of the Baltic landscape, depicting things like boulders, cliffs, and winds. The opening gesture is striking and bleakly oppressive. Only a folk tune in the tiny second movement offers some relief from the percussive tempest. The symphony as a whole is less than 14 minutes long.

No. 5, "Quadri" ("Pictures"), was written in the 1970s based on war paintings. It's 19 minutes of foreboding, fear, and intensity. I found it much more interesting and better sustained than No. 3, in part because Eklund develops longer, more substantive melodic material rather than a motto motif. The finale has lots of martial percussion (snare drum, timpani, triangle, and cymbals all crashing away) and sounds not unlike Shostakovich 7 or 11, or certain parts of Nielsen 5. It fades to a quiet ending. Pretty impressive.

No. 11, "Sinfonia piccola," is also a misleading subtitle, since it is the longest of the three at 27 minutes. It has been recorded twice, once in the presence of the composer and once for this CD, but never played live in concert, which has to be some sort of recording:performance ratio record. The booklet says this symphony is lighter than the earlier two, but that does not mean it is "light" at all.

It starts off very tentatively, both in mood (alternating major and minor) and in material (lots of repeated notes). Again I hear a little bit of Nielsen 5 as some of this more tentative moodiness is interrupted by a snare drum and piercing trombone/tuba motifs. But the music is unsettled and can't find a home, ranging across drum rolls and sudden outbursts.

The second movement is "quasi una marcia" and picks up some of the military character and percussion we heard in No. 5. The finale is a slow adagio, with some intrusions from the previous prickly mood and a good deal more of the mysterious unsettlement of the opening.

Very well played and recorded, this is a Grim Nordic disc that appears to have already found a considerable following among the GMG Grim Music Guys 

[Harry]

Most of the recordings posted in this thread I have, bought automatically all CPO releases that were in my range, and about 10 % not. Keep the good work going chaps, your doing well! Ohh, yes I do not always agree with the assessment of the music, but it's good you all are getting involved! Cheerio.

[Brian]

Karl Goldmark was not much of a symphonist, CPO says, but he loved symphonic poems and overtures. This series brings together three overtures, two vorspiels, two scherzos, and a handful of tone poems.

The legend of Sakuntala was apparently well-known at the time, but the verbose booklet, full of digressions, does not really explain it. What I hear is very pleasant, sweet, mostly slow romantic music that finally rises to a minor-key climax before suddenly cutting off at about 7:45. Here are almost ten full seconds of silence; I thought Qobuz was frozen. Then we get a much abbreviated recap of the slow introduction that moves to the faster music more quickly than before. This is followed by a very full recap of the very long intro. Overall, it's a very appealing sounding work, but the repetition of the second half is quite a lot since the exposition itself is so long. Very charming background listening, but would be challenging to tolerate in concert.

As an aside, I just learned that the USA premiere of the original Bengali play Sakuntala (not the German version) was staged right here in Dallas in 2024.

Penthesilea, by contrast, begins in a festive mood with stately faster music for full orchestra. This is the appealing people-pleaser that we know from the Rustic Wedding Symphony. Eventually this yields to what sounds like a long love scene with romantic string melodies. The music fades to a quiet and seemingly tragic ending.

Of Sappho I know to expect romance aplenty. It starts with a strumming harp serenade, gradually accompanied by wind solos. Then there are a variety of minor- and major-key episodes. Like the two earlier pieces, I couldn't really tell you how this works structurally and would benefit from knowing the story, but it is appealing music all the way through.

Two scherzos round out Vol. 1. The one in A has an introduction, which is unusual. They're both charming enough.

Almost all the tone poems on Vol. 2 are shorter and less self-consciously "epic" than Sappho, Penthesilea, and Sakuntala. The exceptions are Zrinyi and Aus Jugendtagen, which are like them in being pleasant, episodic, and meandering. Zrinyi builds to a pretty big, martial ending, while the other starts with a grandiose processional march.

Im Frühling is a 10-minute work of soft cheeriness; this is a more lackadaisical springtime than Schumann's. In Italien is bouncy and joyful, with raucous percussion and one surprising moment at 3' featuring some muted horns playing a "wrong" note. Apparently he had a very nice holiday. (Actually, there is no evidence that he had a holiday; it was written for a play.) Ein Wintermärchen is an attempt at tragedy, and Götz von Berlichingen is a nice little overture that is almost Wagnerian in its orchestral firepower, including an energetic tuba part, like a thrift shop version of the Meistersinger overture.

TLDR: CPO's booklet notes tell of a time when Goldmark alerted a newspaper that he would be writing a new piece, and that it would be full of pleasant sounds to make people happy. Couple that sentiment with his episodic, chaotic structures, and you have a sense of the ADD pleasantries of these discs. I think there are many more compelling romantic tone poem composers out there.



These three concertos date from 1893, 1909, and 1928. They're presented on the disc in reverse order because the two later works are of smaller size and in one movement each, though that movement is divided up into a number of sections. In his earlier years Rontgen was inspired by working with his cousin, Julius Klengel; in later years it was a partnership with Casals that fueled the concertos and helped him write 11 (!) cello sonatas.

No. 3 could have been written 50 years earlier than its 1920s date except for the interesting use of celesta at times. It's a lyrical minor-key super-romantic piece of modest ambition/scope. There's a short cadenza before an even shorter major-key ending. A pleasant trifle.

No. 2 follows a similar trajectory, but makes room in its slightly longer duration for a couple of new features: a solo cadenza that begins the piece (before the orchestra plays a note), and an Irish folk song section. There are marginally better tunes in this one even before the Irish song, which is wonderfully orchestrated in a series of variations. Formally this 19-minute piece is rather chaotic, it is more of a free fantasia or even a tone poem, but extremely enjoyable.

No. 1 starts...again...with a cello melody in minor key, this time accompanied by stabbing string chords from the orchestra. It's a somewhat long-winded, "wordy" main tune, but the whole piece is built around the cello's long lyrical role. The soloist plays almost every single minute. Though there are three movements, there's a flow between them.

Although all of these are individually enjoyable, they're also similar enough that sitting down to them at one listen becomes a somewhat repetitive experience. Gregor Horsch, the superb soloist, is first cello in the Concertgebouw. I'd like to see No. 2 pop up in a "mixed recital" CD of concertos by varied composers. Say, Saint-Saens 1, then Rontgen 2, then ...Victor Herbert 2? And Kol Nidrei? That's a CD length of the major "non-Dvorak" romantic cello works. I'd like that program.



Theodore Dubois treats his material with surprising casualness in the Violin Concerto's first movement. The orchestral introduction begins with a tiny 15-second slow intro that doesn't contribute anything and should have been cut. The rest of the allegro is more conventional; I like the violin's casual tossing-off of some downward scales near the end.

The Adagio is absolutely lovely, first-class stuff. There's a slightly eastern European character to the opening motif of the finale, and the triangle adds to the dance character. Soloist Ingolf Turban seems to be having more fun, as well. Although I wasn't sold on the first movement, the next two are really lovely, and I might give this concerto a few more listens to see if it improves with familiarity.

The 24-minute violin sonata in begins with a very interesting main theme, one that carries a threatening menace about it despite the A major key. It reminds me a little of the ambiguities of the Franck sonata. The second subject is more peaceable and tender. I like the way that the strange main theme spikes the otherwise very pleasant first movement with an unusual tang. The recapitulation also smartly incorporates additional development.

Actually, as I hear the soulful slow movement head towards its climax, I start to think this really would be a worthy accompaniment to the Franck sonata on a recital program or disc. "The Sonata seems governed by a fear of Wagner as an ideology," the booklet says, but there is a mystical depth at its best moments. There's even some minor-league fire in the finale. This is an unpredictable, wholly engaging sonata and my favorite Dubois so far. The 6-minute Ballade is even more unpredictable and fiery, almost a precursor to Tzigane.

Especially for the chamber music, I found this album an unexpected hit!



Hans Gal might now be best known for orchestrating a few of Brahms' Hungarian Dances, but conductors like Kenneth Woods have been reviving this Viennese late romantic for some time. He lived until age 97. This disc handily assembles several works for chamber orchestra.

The Serenade for Strings is a light 13 minutes but does not have much character. By contrast, the chirping woodwinds at the start of the Divertimento immediately offer more tunes and more harmonic spice. It's a real pleasure all the way through, and an especially impressive find for a world premiere recording.

The Violin Concertino in one 17-minute movement is a serious, engaging listen with a long solo cadenza right in the center - and then another at the end. (The very ending is a satisfying flourish.) The latest work on the album is the 1957 Music for String Orchestra, in which Gal continues to show his loyalty to more traditional ways of composing. It's not exactly antiquated, and there are some modern edges, but those edges are not nearly as sharp as in Bartok's Divertimento, for example. The mysterious theme of the central variation movement is especially engaging.

The Serenade may be a throwaway but the other three works on this disc are truly rewarding.